Death Note news articles

It's hardly the shock news of the century, but Platinum EndVolume One is being planned for publication by Viz Media. That was the major announcement of vague interest to us given at last week's Anime Boston convention.

Platinum End is the latest manga collaboration between Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, the duo who brought us Death Note.

It focuses upon the adventures of suicidal protagonist Mirai, who acquires the ability to see and interact with his guardian angel, whilst mid-fall. Divine intervention saves his life, but eternity still beckons. Mirai, it transpires, is just one of currently twelve human slated to become gods upon their eventual demise. How and why this is a thing will have to await your reading of the manga itself.

The collation and publication of Platinum End as a single volume of manga will occur roughly concurrent with the Death Note live-action movie is released in cinemas. Nothing like a nice bit of tie-in publicity all round!

Look for both around the autumn (or Fall, if you're American) of 2016. No set date has yet been released, but you'll be the first to know when we do.

Platinum End begins - chapter 1, page 1, and front cover of the English version

Platinum End - the new manga by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, Death Note's creators - launched today with its first chapter simultaneously appearing in Japanese and English translations on opposite sides of the Pacific.

Readers in Japan may find it serialized in Jump Square magazine's December 2015 issue 12 (Nov. 4th 2015), while English readers can download a digital version from Viz Media's Weekly Shonen Jumpwebsite.

Jump Square Issue 12 front cover and contents for introduction of Platinum End

Naturally a copy of the first chapter of Platinum End has been grabbed here, so we can see what it's all about and how the Death Note fandom might possibly receive this latest manga by Ohba and Obata.

However, sensible of spoilers, all thoughts in review of the chapter will be hidden behind a read more mask.

An English language version of Platinum End - the new manga by Death Note writer Tsugumi Ohba and artist Takeshi Obata - will be released in the US, Viz Media have announced.

Not only that, but it will keep pace with the Japanese Jump SQ serialisation of the manga.

The US Platinum End manga series will run in Viz Media's digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, matching each new edition with English translations available on-line at the same time.

However, chapters are going to be individually published, with readers paying 99c a time to follow the unfolding tale.

Platinum End appears to be closer to Death Note's plot than the creative duo's interim collaboration Bakuman.

Ohba and Obata's new manga follows the fortunes of a boy named Mirai Kakehashi, who 'does not seek hope in order to keep on living'. While Light Yagami's worldly frustrations found vent in a shinigami's deadly notebook, we don't yet know what happens to Mirai.

But a supernatural entity is also lurking, as may be assumed by the tale being about 'a human and an angel'.

Jump SQ have Tweeted a preview of the Platinum End artwork to adorn its 8th anniversary edition centrefold.

The third collaboration between author Tsugumi Ohba and artist Takeshi Obata - which began with Death Note - appears to be about a suicidal human visited by an angel.

Platinum End follows the fortunes of Mirai Kakehashi, a young boy without any 'hope in living'. The fact that an angel also features prominently in the story would suggest that Heavenly forces have his back. Presumably to help on a quest to acquire some aforementioned hope.

Find more information about the release and publication of Ohba and Obata's new manga in last week's piece announcing it.

And in the meantime, help me work out why translators are suddenly calling Takeshi Ken Obata. Has he gone and changed his first name? Or has some strange algorithm tweak left Takeshi lost in translation?

This should be of interest to Death Note fans - Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata are teaming up again, and the bare hint from the tag-line implies the plot will be right up our alley.

PLATINUM ENDThis is the story of a human and an angel.

Well, we all seemed quite taken last time, when it was a human and a shinigami!

The announcement will appear in the next edition of Weekly Shonen Jump, issue 44, due out on September 28th 2015. It will be followed by a Platinum End première feature the following week, in the October 5th Weekly Shonen Jump No 45.

However, it will be another Shueisha title - Jump Square - wherein the actual serialisation will begin.

Our Death Note creators' brand new manga Platinum End launches on November 4th 2015, dated the Jump SQ December 2015 edition - thus is the way of the world.

Tsugumi Ohba: Angels and Humans

Angels featured subtly in Death Note too

I don't know about you, but I'm quite excited about this! Given Ohba's propensity to mess around with angels - vis-a-vis Light's lifting of Lucifer quotations from Paradise Lost and Mello's alignment (made explicit in the recent televised Death Note drama) with the archangel Michael - I feel that the groundwork has already been forged. And that was quite fabulous.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Please do leave your comments below in the usual manner, but I'm also going to insert a poll about this. Mostly because I've only just noticed I've got a pre-coded poll module that I can insert, and I want to find out what it does.